Lake Chelan Reports - Anton Jones - Darrell & Dad's Family Guide Service

What’s hot again is trolling early for the morning bite on the Bar for Lake Trout. Also, continuing hot is the mid-morning bite on Lake Chelan’s Minneapolis Beach for nice numbers of eating sized lake trout. Salmon fishing on the Upper Columbia has been spotty at best. We had a bit of fun bass fishing on Roses Lake too. On Lake Chelan’s “Bar”, you should try to arrange it so you can fish a four rod array. Two people each with a two rod endorsement will do the trick. A high percentage of our fish have come off the “poor man’s outrigger rods”. My theory is that as we drag the downrigger presentations through neutral to negative fish, it alerts and excites them so they bite the lures on the outrigger rods. I like Worden’s T4 flatfish on the downrigger rods with a setback of about 40 feet. I like low drag stuff on the outriggers like Silver Horde’s Ace Hi flies and Mack’s Mini Cha Cha Squidders baited with a chunk of Northern Pikeminnow stuck on the lead hook. We fish those about 100 feet in back of one pound ball that also has significant blowback. Therefore, there will be anywhere from a one to three minute delay between the downrigger and outrigger lures hitting any given piece of the bottom. Everything that we have heard indicates that the lack of a thermal barrier at the mouth of the Okanogan River has made for very slow salmon fishing. Below Wells Dam, it has been a bit better, but the inconsistent releases from the dam have played hobb with our fishing. We took a businessman’s holiday and threw stuff at the Roses Lake Shoreline with some success for Bass. Rattletraps thrown at the outer edge of the coontail reeds worked. Your kid’s tip of the week is to pay attention to kids comfort to ensure they are having fun. We had a recent morning trip that the little boy was overheating a bit. It would have been easy to miss and just keep trying for that next fish. We ventilated and misted to improve his comfort. He had a great time! Your safety tip of the week is to ratchet up your floating debris awareness on Lake Chelan again. A little surge in water level and evening wind has put some more floating debris out on the lake again. Slow down and watch it. Some of that stuff is partially waterlogged now and sitting quite low in the water. It can be easy to hit. What a nice stretch of weather we’re having!

Anton Jones of Darrell & Dad's Family Guide Service (www.darrellanddads.com or 1-866-360-1523)